


There To Catch You

by asimaiyat



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Cuddling, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Threesome, mind-meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:59:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimaiyat/pseuds/asimaiyat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones gets a little shaky on a shuttle ride. Kirk and Spock help him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There To Catch You

Leonard knew not to look out the windows. At least, his brain knew. His eyes clearly hadn't gotten the message, because they kept flicking over to get a better look at... well, at pretty much nothing. Just blackness punctuated by stabbingly bright points of light. Nothing anchoring them in space, nothing holding them up, nothing to navigate by or hold on to... he gripped the seat tighter and tried to swallow the nausea that was rising in his stomach. 

It was all so damn _embarrassing._ What business did a trained medical professional, let alone a goddamn Starfleet officer, have obsessing over the thought of just falling out of the sky? Leonard was a _scientist,_ he knew how flying _worked_ , knew that statistically speaking he had a greater chance of dying by tripping over a cord in his own medbay, but now he could hear the blood rushing past his ears, his breathing getting shallower and less efficient, and at any moment now one of them was going to _notice_ and he was going to have to remind them, unconvincingly, that he wasn't a damn mental patient -- 

"Bones? You alright? You're looking a little green. No offense, Spock." 

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little shaky about the whole tin-can-in-the-sky thing. I'll be fine as soon as we're back on solid ground like God intended." 

Jim gave him that concerned look that was significantly worse than just outright mockery. "You're having an attack, aren't you? I thought you had your... what are they called... you know, your mother's little helpers for when you take the shuttle." 

"Your sense of humor is decidedly inappropriate in this situation," said Spock. Without another word, he moved himself a little closer to Leonard's side, and placed his warm hand on top of Leonard's cold, clammy one. It would have been a surprising gesture, except that the two of them had been through this before, once, and once Spock got over the complete irrationality of the whole situation, he'd actually turned out to be a pretty good person to have on hand. Jim, on the other hand, had never seen a full-blown attack before, and the idea of Captain Fearless watching him hyperventilate over a harmless little shuttle ride... actually just made him want to throw up even more. 

"No, I ran out of my sedative -- we were supposed to restock -- then Starfleet went and fucked with the schedule --" Talking was good. Not as good as someone _else_ talking, but at least it distracted him from that feeling of falling endlessly, and oh God would you even hit anything or would you just fall forever, you'd die before anyone anywhere else even found you, and which way would even be worse, keep talking -- "of course we have to run an errand for some big-shot Ambassador, when meanwhile I'm running out of basic vaccines and --" 

"Jim." Spock cut Leonard off in the middle of his sentence. "Come closer. He needs... close physical contact." Spock demonstrated by wrapping an arm around Leonard's shoulders, a little awkward at first, but then pulling him close, and that uniquely Vulcan warmth that was usually just a biological curiosity was a just a little bit relaxing in this situation, when Leonard's whole body felt like it was tense enough to snap in half. Jim followed Spock's lead and scooted close to Leonard's other side, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other in the middle of his chest. "It's okay, Bones," he murmured, with a coaxing tone that seemed completely unlike him until Leonard imagined him using it on some pretty young woman. "We're gonna get through this, okay? We're almost there, it's just going to be a little while longer, right?" 

"Yeah... I know, I'm being an idiot, I probably look like --" 

"Shhh." Spock moved his free hand up to Leonard's face, curving strong fingers around his jaw. "Your thought processes have been compromised by your condition. Under normal circumstances, you would never expect your friends to judge you personally for suffering from an illness." 

"Oh God, I must sound like I don't trust --" 

"Shh," Spock repeated. He looked Leonard in the eye, and that was good, because even though Spock's eyes were dark like space, they were also close and familiar and easy to focus on, to remind himself that he was sitting still and not actually falling, no matter what his screwed-up vestibular system was telling him at the moment. The voice still sounded like it was coming from far away, spooky and detached. "Would you permit me to initiate a mind meld? I believe it might be helpful for you, but if you feel it would be an intrusion --" 

"I don't know, Spock, there's all kinds of mess inside my head right now --" 

"It'll be okay," breathed Jim, finally speaking up again. "It's nothing to be ashamed of." He leaned closer to whisper in Leonard's ear. Unlike Spock's, his touch was far from awkward, wrapping his hand around the back of his friend's neck as if he'd done it a thousand times before. "Besides, I bet it'll feel really good. Like a massage for your brain." 

"That -- honestly, that sounds pretty good." His brain must have been wound even tighter than his muscles, because he couldn't stop playing the same thoughts over and over again on a tight little loop, death and destruction and --

"Are you certain?" 

"Yeah, okay. Go ahead." 

"Jim, you will need to stay close, and keep talking. I do not expect that to be a problem for you." Of course Spock wasn't going to miss an opportunity to rag on Jim, and there was something oddly reassuring about that. As he placed his fingers against the pulse points of Leonard's face, he spoke quietly. "Focus on your breathing. We are going to inhale for seven counts; one, two, three, four --"

And then he felt Spock's calm, orderly mind reaching out to his own, seeing and accepting all the chaos and worst-case scenarios littering his consciousness, and reacting with gentleness and patience. He saw himself back on Earth, in the little outdoor shower house at his grandparents' lake cabin, feeling the sun seeping between the wooden panels as cool water ran down his skin, and he could _smell_ the earth and the fresh-cut grass. And Spock was with him, arms wrapped around him from behind as he ran his pleasantly warm hands over Leonard's body, and somewhere that steady voice was still counting out inhales and exhales -- and then Jim was there too, somehow, because Leonard could hear his voice, soft and sly. 

"We're going to get you home safe and sound, Bones. You know I'd never let anything happen to you. I'm just going to take care of you, make you feel better however I can, okay? I'm going to make this up to you when we get home, however you want, just want you safe and sound and feeling like yourself again. God, I just want to kiss you, is that okay?" And his hand was on Leonard's neck, rubbing and squeezing at the tense little spot where his spine met his skull, and this part was in the real world, he was pretty sure, so he nodded in the real world, with a little jerk of his head. "I just want to kiss you all over, make you relax and just let me take care of you for a while. Spock can come, too. We'll take a nice long time and just massage you and kiss you until all the tension melts away." 

In whatever fantasy world Spock had drawn them into, the two of them were embracing him from both sides, keeping him surrounded with warmth and the soft sounds of their breathing. It took him a second to realize that the same was true in reality, and after the momentary tumbling sensation of pulling himself back into the present, he felt like the shuttle had gotten a little bit sturdier, a little bit less freewheeling. "Close your eyes," Jim murmured into his ear, and as Leonard obeyed without arguing, he proceeded to run his tongue along the edge of Leonard's ear and kiss his face in between Spock's fingers, brushing his lips against both of them indiscriminately. Spock's hand pulled back from the pulse points to softly massage at his temples and stroke his hair. Eyes closed, he focused on the sensations, the nerves in his skin telling him that his body was clearly in a tightly enclosed space rather than a vast, unknowable one. His mind was reeling a little from the adrenaline spike of the panic attack, making him feel unsteady, so he let his friends support him as their hands met on his back, tracing his spine and shoulder blades. He could feel Jim's deep, warm breaths against his neck, and every once in a while a soft word, "that's good, let us hold you," or "we're okay, right? everything's okay," and then Spock's pronouncements that his heart rate was starting to return to normal, by human standards, and that he seemed to have stopped perspiring quite so much. Leonard let out a shaky sigh and leaned back into their arms, and for a moment he just drifted, focused on nothing but the steady breathing and asymmetrical heartbeats of his companions.

"Hey, look at that, we made it." Jim's words could have been sarcastic, but they weren't, really, because his tone was so gentle and honest. He ruffled Leonard's hair, and when he opened his eyes he saw blue sky and brown dirt and, a ways off, a mountainous horizon. The immediate sense of relief was dizzying, and it wasn't until he tried to stand up that he realized how exhausted he was. For a moment he faltered, and Spock caught him around the shoulders with one strong arm and steadied him until he could take another step. 

Setting foot on an actual planet, be it as it may a weird alien planet where some new terrible thing was undoubtedly about to happen, felt like taking the weight of the world off his shoulders. But replaying the past half-hour in his mind, he felt a little queasy all over again.

"Uh... guys? Are we planning on talking about what just happened? Because I'd be fine with never speaking of it again, but --"

Jim clasped a hand around his upper arm in a gesture that, from anyone else, would seem like one of manly camaraderie. "What's there to talk about? We've got your back, Bones. That's nothing new, is it?"

"It might not be new for you, but that was certainly a new experience for me."

"I believe what the Captain intends to say is, it is irrational to fear falling when someone will always be available to catch you."

"Right, irrational. But we're not going to hold it against you if you do. Right, Spock?"

The two of them may or may not have argued for the rest of the time it took for their greeting party -- who of course was late -- to get there. Leonard wasn't listening, except to the sounds of wind against the rocks and some kind of alien birdsong and the voices of his two closest friends. And then it was time to go and make friends with Mr. Big-Shot Ambassador who'd had the god-given nerve to get between a man and his supply of sedatives. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he wondered what he had to look forward to on the ride back.


End file.
